Developing global practitioners

Abstract

Intercultural competence, defined as the skills required for an increasingly globalised world, is poorly understood in both higher education and in its value for different professions. The challenge for educators is how to develop such competence – as a kind of professional knowledge – through the curriculum. This paper explores industry expectations of intercultural competence in public relations graduates in two cities, Singapore and Perth, and offers useful insights into the perceived value of intercultural competence for public relations. The study highlights the need for intercultural competence, as both an understanding of cultural difference and as it applies to professional knowledge, to be incorporated into public relations curricula. The findings highlight the difficulties in offering a ‘national’ curriculum, which is then exported to other countries, and demand educators address the ethnocentric values and narratives of their discipline. These findings are significant given the internationalisation of public relations education and the need to prepare graduates for careers in public relations in a globalised world.

Keywords:

• Internationalisation
• globalisation
• intercultural competence
• public relations
• education
• curriculum

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Our thanks go to the 17 participants who contributed to this study and Associate Professor Betty Leask who supported this research as part of her Australia Learning and Teaching Council National Teaching Fellowship: Internationalisation of the Curriculum in Action.